Cell Phones are Changing Social Interaction

Breaking up by text message.

Would you break up by sending a text message? How much of your social life do you conduct through text messages? Do you schedule face-to-face time? Do you track where your friends are by texting? Do you have conversations with text messages?

Having a cell phone completely changed my social life. This is what my sons told me after we finally got them cell phones when they were in high school. I also have a cell phone, but don’t feel having it changed my social life. For my sons, however, the effect was dramatic. Cell phones may be changing how people interact with each other and changing their expectations for social interaction.

A recent set of research indicates that young people use their cell phones differently than older adults use their cell phones. We have this belief that young people are constantly using their cell phones – texting, checking email, searching the web, taking pictures, and tweeting. Supposedly, older people (people like me) use their cell phones less frequently. But there is actually very little data on differences in how age impacts cell phone use and beliefs about etiquette. With my colleague, Deborah Forgays, and one of our students, Jessie Schreiber, we’ve recently published an investigation on how people use their cell phones for social interaction and their beliefs about etiquette. The fun part is that we looked at people in different age groups (18-24; 25-34; 35-49; and 50-68).

First the obvious finding. Age relates to big differences in how many text messages people send and receive each day. Young adults rely on text messages but older adults send and receive substantially fewer texts. In the over 50 group, more that 80 percent send and receive fewer than 10 texts each day. But young adults are texting much more every day. Interestingly, we found no difference in the number of cell phone calls made and received. Nobody is making very many – over 90 percent in every age group made fewer than 10 calls each day. The age difference in cell phone use is in texting.

Young adults also use text messaging as their primary method of contacting friends – over 80 percent report texting as their preferred method. The percentage of people who use texting as their primary method of contacting friends drops in older age groups. Older adults (over age 50) prefer calling or email. Given the age difference in the number of texts, it shouldn’t be surprising that younger adults believe it is more appropriate to use their cell phones in a greater variety of situations than do older adults. We asked about a lot of contexts – having dinner with friends, in line at the store, in church, intimate situations, at the gym, having coffee with a friend. Across the board, younger adults saw text messaging as more acceptable than older adults.

So the quick message is that younger adults are texting in more situations, using it to contact friends, and see texting as acceptable.

This seems to be having an impact on their expectations in relationships. You’ve got to feed the beast in text interactions with young adults. Young adults expect quicker responses from friends than do older adults. By the way, we didn’t find any difference in how quickly people expect responses from romantic partners – everyone expects a response relatively quickly. So when you get a text from your partner, stop what you’re doing and respond. Oh, and if you are slow to respond to young adults, they will get irritated with you more quickly than older adults.

Young adults text more, use texts to contact friends, and expect quicker responses. Younger adults also use text messages for a variety of functions in romantic relationships. In particular, about 15 percent of young adults reported they had ended a relationship via text message and 25 percent reported they had been dumped via text. The percentage of text break ups dropped in older age groups and the over 50 crowd never reported text dumps. We’ve always known that breaking up is hard to do – so why not do it via text?

I think this may explain why young adults are so attached to their cell phones. This isn’t addiction. This is social interaction. When you conduct your social life via text, keeping track of your cell phone takes on particular importance. Older adults, like me, shouldn’t make judgments about cell phone use in younger adults, or at least we should withhold the negative evaluations of people constantly checking their cell phones. Perhaps instead we can respect the cell phone and internet natives. These young adults have grown up using cell phones and the internet. They’ve learned to effectively maintain and enhance (and sometimes end) social relationships through the ether. Maybe they will be more engaged with and attached to their social groups than older adults who are still learning to keep in touch in the modern era.

Mr. Hyman, I am doing a research project at school. My teacher has made us do another way to present our information. I have decided to do an interview with you and some other people. If you could give me your e-mail, or any other way I could contact you, that will be a great help.

The mobile phone, particularly the smartphone, has nearly been vilified as
a god of our society. I don't know of a person who doesn't have one (in
fact I know several people who have multiple "smart" devices) It has become
something almost as necessary as electricty these days.

Why has the smartphone become so important to us? To answer that, I think
it's necessary to ask the question- what is it our phones do for us? On the
practical hand, they organize our lives with easily modified schedules,
keep us update with work and social connections via emails, texting, and
calls, and allow us to be more productive by having access to information
quickly. All of this is useful in and of itself, but it wouldn't seem that
these traits would bring about the devotion, and near fanaticism that the
smartphone has garnered. It would seem the smartphone has become something
much more valuable to us on an unconscious level. As a wise friend of mine
pointed out, they have become our voice for when we wish to communicate.
They have become our brains for the way they allow us to access information
at speeds previously unheard of. They have also become our memory, for the
pictures and videos they record and hold, precious records that had they
gone unrecorded might have been lost to the unyielding pick ax that is
time.

The phone has become an extension of ourselves. The device that is nearly
glued to our palms has become the way we connect with the world, and with
other people in it. Particularly with the advent of texting, it's become
possible to instantaneously contact someone in a variety of situations in
which we previously hadn't been able to. Just the other day I walked past a
store window and in it was a dress that I knew my best friend on the East
coast would have loved, so I was able to snap a picture and show her in
less than a thirty seconds, expressing the notion that I was thinking of
her and what maybe she would like for the next gift-giving holiday. How
often has it been said that it is all of those little things that are the
bricks and mortar to the houses of relationships that we build? Of course
we have to be careful that we don't accidentally allow it to take over our
lives. Resistance isn't futile, but it is conscious, something that the
smartphone is much less than it used to be.

Even though cell phones have advanced tremendously in the past few decades and have many advantages, they have begun to diminish personal communication and interrupt time spent with loved ones. Many people have come to rely on cell phones, and spend useless time on these devices, when they could be doing something productive. Not to mention the amount of deaths resulted in road distraction involving texting and driving. While there is a plus side to cell phones, the usage and reliability effects daily lives in more ways than people realize.

I work as a substitute teacher and come in contact with hundreds of teenagers a year. It is really evident to me that cell phones inhibit learning and support Attention Deficit Disorder. I work with inner city teens. I bet teenagers from upper middle class neighbors have adults that keep it under control, but it isn't under control most places.

I am a young adult (21 years old), and have been using computers since I was in fifth grade. If someone broke up with me via text, I would me more concerned by that, than the actual break up. It seems very disrespectful to me. Regarding the use of cell phones in more and more situations, is a bad thing too. I find it very disrespectful for someone to use electronic devices while they are at lunch or dinner, or having a conversation with someone. There are times and places for everything. Cell phones can be very useful. I check emails, check my bank accounts, search information, find addresses, and so on. And yes I text a lot, but I know when is inappropriate to do these things. I use my phone for everything, all day long. But on dates, dinners, lunches, movie theaters, job interviews, class, work, etc. I abstain form using it. I've been like this since I got a phone. Which was in my teenage years. Many teenagers use their phones in most, if not all the situations I mentioned above. Most of the times is plain rude, and not necessary. I've been with my friends, and one of them would be on the phone all the time. It is not pleasant. Very, very rude. Cell phone are a great tool for many activities of our daily life, but it can be a very bad one too.

For school we are required to make a presentation about this topic. This requires number backing and so hard evidence of this is important. Would you be able to send me your research numbers of surveys or any other form of research you did on this topic? We present on Friday so time is of the essence. Thank you in advance.

The rapid increase in smart phone use will reduce the brains ability to use working memory and memory recall. Eg: (the what if moments of thought) which requires you to process the idea and use your working memory to try and figure out the answer. We will lose important thought processes, working memory and in my opinion the most important - imagination. One needs to look at this on a evolutionary scale to grasp the full concept of the possibility of reduced average IQ and working memory.

The rapid increase in smart phone use will reduce the brains ability to use working memory and memory recall. Eg: (the what if moments of thought) which requires you to process the idea and use your working memory to try and figure out the answer. We will lose important thought processes, working memory and in my opinion the most important - imagination. One needs to look at this on a evolutionary scale to grasp the full concept of the possibility of reduced average IQ and working memory.